One day I was in an internal meeting reviewing the draft of an upcoming client deliverable with a team of 7 or 8 people. At one point the highest ranking person in the room, whom I'll call the Admiral, shut down an argument by saying, "The client wants it like this." And we moved on.

A few minutes later the Admiral argued (and won) a battle by saying, "Sometime we [our company] can get get fired for doing exactly what the client asks."

Now both of these ideas have merit. Yes, we must give the client what they ask for. The customer is always right, right? But sometimes we have to see past what they WANT to what they NEED. The customer lacks vision; that's why they hire us, right?

Yup I accept that these contradictory ideas can exist at the same time. Though I can't say I have ever heard them uttered about the SAME client project in the SAME meeting and by the SAME mouth.

Now if I did not know the Admiral as well as I do, I would assume this was just a case of a high ranking exec justifying inconsistent ideas and shutting down any challenges with pithy phrases.

OK. That might have been a teeny bit of this situation.

But in general the Admiral is a brilliant, if tangential, thinker with an innate sense of business strategy. In other words, I couldn't dismiss the contradiction solely as executive ego on parade.

In this case the client had asked for a survey of competitors with recommendations for improvement. A valuable exercise to be sure. Emulating others and making incremental improvements can close gaps, but it will never lead to innovation. You can't become a market leader by "following better".

The client wants to understand and beat their competitors. But simply closing any gaps is not enough.

How to reconcile what they want with what they really need? In my opinion the key is to find a way to answer both the want and the need in sequence. Personally I feel like the answers are stronger separated into two deliverables, but at minimum they should be presented in discrete bites.

You can't ignore the ask, even if you "know" better. If you agreed to a gap analysis, you need to provide one. Package the answer in the cleanest and clearest way you can. Provide a realistic diagnostic of the gaps to competitors and the improvement needed to reach parity.

Only then, after the ask is complete, can you expand to larger ideas, ideas that challenge the status quo and may not even be possible today. This type of "no rules" thinking is the way innovation happens.

Here is the kicker... Even if you KNOW you need to go there, presenting the second step without the first is a big mistake, IMHO. It not only disregards the clients request, but it also "cheats" by ignoring the constraints of the client's reality. Any of us can design a flying car, if we start the the assumption that gravity does not exist!

Ambiguity is not my favorite thing. But the more I thought about the apparent contradiction of "do what the client wants" and "sometimes we fail if we do exactly what the client wants," the more I realized they can live in harmony by answering both in sequence.

Smart people, creative people, people who really do know better...all these people routinely attend or host meetings in which there is no agenda.  I'm not talking about a physical, typed agenda, though I appreciate one. I'm talking about AN agenda...a reason for being there...a stated objective.

These smart, capable business people, who would never start a client project without a clearly defined scope of work, don't appear to realize how wasteful it is to gather co-workers with no compass or map.  

I think this happens because it *feels* like work.  It seems like you and your meeting buddies are being action-oriented and moving the project forward.  And maybe some of the time you are.  But I've sat in on hundreds, well thousands, of  meetings that had the wrong people in the room, went on for 2-3 times longer than needed, and danced around a decision.  

If you leave the meeting where the only resolution to have another meeting, you have failed. Period.

Meetings are vital to business, and when they are well-planned and well-run, they can ensure common understanding and shared vision.  When they are merely a response to a need to "do something," they are a colossal waste.  Look at your calendar.  Into which category will your meetings fall?

The good news: you can make a difference in your day simply by asking, respectfully, "What do we need to accomplish in this meeting?" at every meeting you attend.  And if it's YOUR meeting, drop the answer to that question in your invite.  Start a trend: un-hide your agenda!

Like most freelance consultants, I often encounter the divide between companies who will invest in consulting services and those who will not.  But there is an equally important distinction between clients who are open to inviting a consultant into their world to assess and improve their situation and those who limp from one external guru to the next-- ever in search of "the" answer.

These companies seem to practice serial monogamy with consulting theories and practitioners.  They fall too hard with each new "love" -- rejecting the old ways (that were "new" only 12 weeks before) and bringing in the new and improved -- only to repeat the cycle with the next big idea.

After they move on, they disconnect from the theories of the past, regardless of how intently they followed them at the time.  The people on their team suffer from business theory whiplash, and tend to fall into two camps: the disciples of the latest gem and the resistant, who play along to keep their jobs but refuse to rework their sales presentation yet again.

 One clue that you may be dealing with a serial consulting monogamist  is that they disparage the previous work or consulting personalities as having failed them.  Whereas a thoughtful approach to external experts  enables a company to "borrow from the best" in a variety of complementary ways, the starry-eyed serial monogamist feels they must reject all that has come before.

Doesn't it remind you of that person you meet at a party: Always talking about her recent string of failed romances? Always sure the failure was beyond her control? Always sure the next one will be THE one?

The truth is, consultants and the latest business theories can do wonders for your team. But they merely the vehicle to LIFT you to the next level. A consultant will NOT create a better situation; they can help you find your own path there.  

If you are looking for an outside expert to be an outside answer -- you will be looking for a long, long time.  One consultant after another. Serial monogamy.
 

More than a decade ago, I had a boss named Don who like to use "the squint test" on any advertisement or collateral we created.  He would ask you to hold it up and he would squint at it from ten to twenty feet away.  

At the time, I thought he was a little nuts.  But over the years I have come to understand the wisdom of this approach to a first level of creative review, and I have shared it with many other people.  (So a tip-of-the-hat to all the boss wisdom we don't appreciate at the time.  Perhaps it's like the wisdom of our moms and dads, which we don't fully recognize it until we are out on our own.)

Now, Don was old school and the desktop revolution had not yet invaded his office.  In other words, he had no computer.  So the squint test was conducted with literal printouts and a big office.  Today you can get the same result by zooming out on your sales asset on-screen.

Physical or electronic, the squint test tells you a number of things very quickly:

1. Is piece visually pleasing? Is there a good balance of copy and negative space? Are the margins sufficient?  Does the piece feel crowded or unfinished?

2. Are the colors balanced?  Does one color shout while the others whisper? Is there harmony in the palette  Are the saturation levels too similar so that the colors appear muddy?

3. Where does your eye land first? Is that the most important point?  Are there two seemingly equal areas of interest? Is that desirable for this piece? 

4. If the piece is for a projected presentation, how will it look from the very back of a large room? If the piece is for a billboard, what shapes will drivers see before content clicks into focus? 

If you are deciding among several layout options, print out tiny "squint" version (where you can grasp the layout but not read the words) and as a few coworkers to comment on them.  The strongest layout will become apparent.

After you're happy with the squint test, of course you'll need get into the nitty-gritty of the copy and design.  But Don's point, and now my point, is that if the squint test fails, it doesn't matter how tight the copy is or how creative the graphics.  If your don't make it  past the squint, neither will your audience. 

Thanks Don.

When you were a kid, did you ever make flip-book movies?  You draw a stick figure on the corner of each page, make the tiniest changes on each successive page, and then you flip the pages and - voila! - your own mini-cartoon.  Whether it's a flip book or an movie playing at your local theater, the static images seem to move because of how our brains interpret them. 

Sadly, this same phenomenon can be incredibly distracting in a presentation.  Have you seen it?  The company logo nestled safely in the lower corner for 20 slides suddenly does a little dance on slide 21.  The table that has been supporting a content build over several slides sudden shifts dramatically to the left.  The headlines have a disorienting tendency to drift toward the top of the slide.

You might be thinking, "Oh, who cares about such a minor thing."  But like so many small details in life - a dirty fork at a restaurant, a spot on your favorite shirt, a ding on your brand new car - once we notice them we don't forget them.  

The good new is: Most of these slide twitches can be eliminated if you use PowerPoint as it was meant to be used.  The basic slide layouts anchor your content consistently across your slides.  I will occasionally see a slide deck that has been built entirely from text boxes floating on blank layouts, and I am dumfounded by the extra effort that was wasted creating each slide from scratch.  It's like using a screwdriver to try to pound a nail -- yes, it might work, but why not grab a hammer!?! When you work with the basic layouts, your margins and headlines will not shift around from slide to slide. 

That's not to say you have to use the "of-the-shelf" layout for size, color, placement etc.  Edit the SLIDE MASTER and you can customize the look and feel, without sacrificing consistency.  Place a logo on the SLIDE MASTER and not only will it automatically appear in exactly the same place on every slide - it will no longer be editable on each slide.  That means you won't accidentally delete, stretch, or move it.  Think of the graphic elements on the SLIDE MASTER as existing under a pane of glass.  You can see them, but you can't touch them, unless you go back to the SLIDE MASTER.

If you have never explored to the SLIDE MASTER, it is very much worth your time.  Not only will you better understand why slides behave the way they do and have more control, you will also save significant time because you can edit once and have it impact 50 slides.  This is a skill worth pursuing.

After you've aligned the SLIDE MASTER to your will, you might still want to drop a graphic or other element onto several slides. A good example of this is a flowchart that you want to build in several stages, and you don't want to use animation on a single slide because you want the handouts to print individual steps on separate pages.

If you try to eyeball the placement of individual slide elements, you might get lucky.  But there is way to create the look of seamless animation over several slides. (And if you started using PowerPoint, as I did, in the early 90's, you will remember this is how we did it before there was an option for "animation").  

Create the FINAL slide in the series first.  In the example of the flowchart, capture every step in the process.  Be sure you're happy with it, before you move on to the next step.  If you need to get buy-off from others on your team, get their OK before you move on to the next step (trust me, you'll thank me).

Copy your FINAL slide and place it before the final slide in slide sorter view.  Edit the new copy to remove elements for the next-to-last slide. Then copy that slide, and strip off more elements.  Continue until you have the desired steps in your series.  Watch your series in SLIDESHOW and the slides appear to build.  

The secret is that you locked in the placement for the last slide FIRST.  Sometimes, you will realize you forgot something or need to make a modification that impacts all the slides in the series.  The risk of "twitchy" slides is highest when we think we can make exactly the same edit in multiple places.   If you need to adjust every slide in a series, I strongly urge you to modify the final slide and then repeat the copy-remove process.  

I get the feeling that many people think they will build their reputation one day with big ideas, grand gestures, and landmark decisions.  And because they think it is only the major milestones that make (or break) how they are perceived, they don't focus on the smaller opportunities to build trust.

A strong reputation is all about trust.  People must trust that you will perform as expected.  Now it's possible to create a reputation on a single moment of brilliance, but for most of us, the more likely scenario is that our reputation is build on thousands of micro moments.

When you call when you say you're going to call.
When you submit a deliverable on or before a deadline.
When you acknowledge emails and respond in a timely manner.
When you show up.

So many people seem to act like this "little stuff" just gets in the way of their eventual greatness. 

Their calendar is crowded, and they have to double or triple book.
They do their best work under pressure, so of course deadlines have to slip just a little.
Their inbox is so full; they can't be expected to answer every question.
They're busy; you'll understand when they cancel.

Tiny chinks in the armor, to be sure.  But add them up and suddenly you can't trust that this person will meet the simplest, baseline requirement of a strong reputation: do what you say you will do.

And when that happens, when a mosaic of broken promises suddenly snap into focus, it becomes very difficult to do business.  How can you move forward when even the smallest commitment is put under question?  The foundation of the relationship becomes soft and uncertain.

You may think I'm being melodramatic. 
You may think your co-workers and clients aren't affected by your foibles or that they "know how you are."

But I challenge to notice who in your circle always follows through and who does not; notice who comes to mind when you need to be certain the job gets done.  

Your mental Rolodex will flip to those who have a reputation that you trust.  
Now ask yourself if others perceive you the same way.

If not - change it. It doesn't take a big idea, a grand gesture, or a landmark decision.
All it takes is only making promises you can keep and keeping every promise you make.

Are you plagued by decisions that come back from the grave and terrorize your team? 

Lately I've noticed a trend:  issues that I understood to be resolved are reviewed, re-opened, and reconsidered.  

Now, on the one hand, I'm a fan.  It makes sense to go back to a decision if new information has become available or if an assumption originally used to reach consensus has been challenged.  A steadfast determination to never alter one's course is how we run into icebergs. Right, Captain Smith?

But on the other hand, re-opening a closed decision can be a form of passive-aggressive veto.  "Hey you can't hold me accountable for my tasks, because the whole project is back on the drawing board!"  If nothing is every truly resolved, how can anyone be responsible for the successful completion of the plan?

And on the third hand, the one that the zombie is probably gnawing on.... sometimes we have pure zombie decisions.  They claw their way out of the grave, whispering in your ear that maybe you made a mistake...maybe you should have gone the other way...it's not too late...nothing is set in stone...why not reconsider...

In the consumer world, that's called buyer's remorse.  In the corporate world, that's called "the-boss-has-flip-flopped-AGAIN-so-we-have-to-rework-the-work-again."   Not as catchy, but accurate.

If you occasionally revisit decisions and with careful deliberation change your mind, good for you; you are a thoughtful leader.  If, however, you are surrounded by the grisly remains of decisions who routinely rise from their graves and trample your villagers - it might be time to stay the course and see what happens.

Why the newsroom matters in the boardroom.

Today's news is delivered with a fractured focus that can completely distract the viewer.   A talking head remains the center of any TV newscast, and he or she usually has a still image over one shoulder to provide a visual clue to the story.  

But that simple set up has erupted into a veritable three ring circus, all designed to stop us from changing the channel.

• A line of text (or sometimes more than one) scrolls across the bottom to offer information on other stories, scores, or stock markets.  
• A bullet list of the next few stories hovers to one side, just in case the current "breaking news" is not of interest to us.  
• A headline and pithy sub-headline offer context to the story if we happen to have the sound muted.  
• A single frame of news footage could be studied for an hour - yet the a new visual assault appears mere seconds later.
  

They do this because, sadly, it works.  Like a car wreck on the highway, we are unable to look away. We, the viewers, have taught them that the only way to hold our attention is to bombard our senses with information.  And it might hold our attention, or at least pause our remote controls, but attention is not comprehension or engagement.  This approach washes over our senses; it doesn't draw us in.  The next time you are watching the news, try to notice if you are spending more attention listening or reading the screen.  Does the presenter become an annoying hum in the background? Do you find yourself turning down the sound to "read the TV" like you would a website?

Go back fifty years and you'd see a presenter, almost always a man, sitting at a desk, holding papers, filling the lens with nothing more than his own gravitas.  And telling the story of the news.  Now you may argue with only 3 channels, they didn't have to worry about keeping eyeballs glued their broadcast.  Yet, if you watch the news from, say, the BBC, you'll see a very simple set-up, more in depth discussions of current events, and you will probably find the stories suck you in.

How does this apply to sales artifacts?  Let's look specifically at presentations.  I would argue that the slides should augment your message, not replace it.  Think of the images-over-the-shoulder on a newscast.  The images - a fire, a politician, a police car - do not tell you the story, but they offer context.  They support the spoken story.  A good slide does that, too.   

You can take the other option - fill the slide with everything you plan to say, plus background information, plus graphics and charts, plus conclusions.  You can choose to make your slide the star of your presentation, and many do.  But is that what you want? 

An audience can either read or listen - we literally cannot do both at once.  We might switch between them very quickly, but one sense must "grab the controls."  Overfill your slides and you are asking the audience to stop listening.  

Your slides are not your presentation; you are the presentation.  The slides should complement your spoken word: offering clarity on complex issues, providing reinforcement for the visual-learners in the group (many people have to *see* something to understand it), and sketching the arc of your story.   Remember that Walter Cronkite and his peers could hold a nation's attention with a desk and a stack of notes.

Start from the story, not the slides.

I knew a sales person who was completely focused on how to open.  Whether she was planning a presentation, a meeting, or an email, she wanted to grab her audiences attention.  She want to make sure they were on the edge of their seat.  She believed that people only respond to flamboyant, extravagant claims ("Company XYZ earned $2million in one week and you can too").  She like loud - volume, colors, ideas, anything.  

The trouble was, she was trying to sell a service based on expertise and trust. She was trying to show corporate prospects that her firm would add value, but she was behaving like a huckster. 

After a few conversations, I learned she had only recently been moved into a sales role. Further, I realized her entire frame of reference for "marketing" was infomercials and email blasts. In her mind, that's what worked, and that's what marketing was.  

The funny (or sad) thing was that when she was actually working with her clients, she was entirely different.  She conveyed authority and expertise; she challenged their thinking respectfully and profoundly.  She was the elusive "trusted adviser."  

She was greatly valued by her clients, so her company wanted to put her in front of potential clients.  And to everyone's chagrin, she morphed into a frenetic combination of  Ron Popeil, Billy Mays, and Jerry Lewis.  Well, perhaps I exaggerate.  

But her focus on how to OPEN made it unnecessary to consider how to CLOSE.  She never got that far.  She did grab their attention - in the worst possible way.  

What about you? Do you try to grab the audience by the throat or take them by the hand?  Do you get a better response when you shout or when you whisper?  What is the right balance of sizzle and steak? 

Have you noticed how frequently really big, juicy, complicated issues get distilled down to an overly simple "us" or "them" position?  

There's something about a rousing two-player rivalry that seems to satisfy the caveman part of our brains.  And if it is a fight-to-the-death, all the better, I guess.

A year's worth of sweat and effort by dozens of teams boils down to one "big game" between two teams... whose fans would happy gauge each other's eyes out.  The world comes together for the Olympic Games, and sure release the doves, but's there's always at least one riveting dogfight for gold and silver.  The bronze winner is giddy just to be on the podium, but the real "fight" was between #1 and #2, right?

And what about politics?  You can't turn on a radio or TV station without hearng either side demonize the other with vague descriptions of what "THEY" want to do to you.  And we eat it up, we feel like we're on the "right side" and we cheer on "our guy" with the same possessed zeal as the fans at the Super Bowl.

Face it: humans like having two, clear, isolated choices.  
We like reducing the irreducible to a coin-flip decision. 

But I think we need to learn to be comfortable with more complicated choices.  I think we should consider them individually - a buffet of choices not a fixed menu.  You might "be conservative" on one issue and "be liberal" on another.  But you don't have to BE either one as a person.  And, here's a thought, maybe make your decision not based on the party listed on your voter registration card but based on contemplation, research, and discussion.  

Do we let this penchant for two-option thinking creep into the workplace?  Too often, yes.  You're either with the boss or you're against him.  We watch (or participate) as factions grow and plots are laid in cubicle-land over an upcoming decision about the new company insurance plan.   Splenda or Sweet-n-Low: you have to pick.  Do we like the new guy: quick, yes or no?

Office politics is the art of manipulating people and situations to your benefit - and there is a continuum of benign to malignant practitioners out there.   The harder someone is pushing you to take an either-or position on option 1 or 2, the more you should consider his or her agenda, and the more you should search for option 3, 4, or 5.  

Fight your caveman brain. 
Don't look to be on the "right team'; look to make the right choice.